New search engine points way to buy drugs, guns

"Grams" search engine is the latest Silk Road replacement.

Looking online for some good weed, assault rifles, or stolen credit cards? One reddit user has just the thing.

With its intuitive, Google-like interface, a new search engine, called Grams, offers users a new tool to find sites, not indexed by standard search engines, that are selling illicit materials.

The search engine can only be accessed through the Tor anonymizing browser.

The Grams interface uses a number of signature Google trademarks, including a blue-red-yellow-green logo, a Google-esque search box, and a vintage, Google-styled “I’m feeling lucky” button (which the company nixed in 2011).

Grams even plans to copy Google’s advertising strategy, as its anonymous developer, who has only been identified by his reddit username “gramsadmin,” explained on the site. “Within the next two weeks Grams will have a system similar to Google adwords where vendors can buy keywords and their listings will go to the top of the search results when those keywords are searched for," gramsadmin said. They will be bordered with an advertisement disclaimer so users know those are paid results.”

But while Grams is not the first attempt to make the darknet searchable, gramsadmin appears all too willing to acknowledge that Grams (a not-so-subtle reference to a unit of measurement that has been co-opted by the illegal drug trade) facilitates illegal activity.

gramsadmin offered some insight into his motives for launching the search engine, telling Wired, “I noticed on the forums and reddit people were constantly asking ‘where to get product X?’ or ‘who had the best product X and was reliable and not a scam?’ I wanted to make it easy for people to find things they wanted on the darknet and figure out who was a trustworthy vendor.”

Users of so-called "hidden services" suffered a blow last October when, after nearly three years of operation, the notorious Silk Road website was shut down, its Tor-enabled domain name was seized, and its founder was arrested. The Silk Road specialized in facilitating the sale of illegal drugs of all sorts, conducting its business entirely in Bitcoin.